


We Shared A Fate

by Winterling42



Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, Multi, Post-Ixalan Rewrite
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-18 12:55:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21611230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterling42/pseuds/Winterling42
Summary: time for a complete rewrite of Magic Story! They should never have out-sourced more than the Core sets! I'm fixing everything from Dominaria onward--consistent characterization all around, folks!Future polyamory for (almost) everyone! Stay tuned for more updates.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly what I got done during NaNoWriMo. I will Attempt regular updates, but cannot guarantee a thing.

Thrust into the Blind Eternities, Liliana...hesitated. Beyond that veil, the horrors of Amonkhet rampaged. And the so-called Gatewatch failed to stop it. To stop _him_. 

Chandra's presence followed her into the chaos, a fiery Spark that looked only vaguely human. There was no _sight_ , in the place between worlds (thus, _Blind_ Eternities). But in the birthplace of magic, fellow planeswalkers had a...flavor, a scent, a note of music, that was distinctive. Liliana felt it when Nissa too was pushed free of the real world, her plant magic striped with veins of Bolas's corruption. 

You couldn't speak, either, in a place that wasn't really a place. But it was enough to extend what Liliana thought of as her arm, to beckon the others and have them follow when she turned. Their magic was erratic, flimsy. Damaged. Liliana wasn't exaggerating to herself when she rationalized her delay in leaving Amonkhet--they would not have made it to Dominaria without her guidance. 

She was a little surprised to see Gideon materialize with them. She hadn't sensed him leave with the other two. She was _not_ surprised by the first question out of Chandra's mouth. "Where's Jace?" 

Liliana hadn't felt _him_ lingering in the muddied aether outside of that hellish desert plane. Either he had planeswalked randomly, regaining corporeality in some distant world, or--

But that wasn't a useful thought to have, at the moment. "I'm sure he'll be alright," she said, with less confidence than she would have liked. More truthfully she added, "He's very adaptable." 

There was an uncomfortable pause, in which they all shivered and panted and took stock of their wounds. Gideon wouldn't even look at them, one meaty hand pressed against a hole in his shoulder as he stared fixedly at the ground. Liliana took the time to orient herself: Dominaria was a big plane, and the stinking ruins she'd led them to were...surely weren't....well, they weren't the Vess she remembered. But she did recognize the distant outline of an old Thran ruin, and after some work placed them in the outskirts of what had once been a thriving town on the outskirts of Vess Manor. 

She was also unsurprised by Chandra's next question--"Where are we?"--but that didn't mean she had formalized an answer. 

"No place good," Nissa answered first, her voice worn to numbness by the day they had endured. "Death lingers here." she shuddered and turned an unsettling green glare on Liliana. "Though I should not be surprised that _you_ are drawn to such a place." 

And what was she supposed to say to that? 'Oh, I grew up here, but it wasn't a cesspit hundreds of years ago?' No. "I don't recall you picking a better vantage point," she snapped instead. Anger was so much easier to feign than concern. "If you don't like my choice of locales that Bolas _won't_ be watching, feel free to find your own." 

She realized at once that mentioning Bolas was the wrong thing to do--Nissa stood abruptly, the intimidating effect ruined by how she swayed and stumbled once upright. Liliana found herself almost curious as to what Bolas had done to her--unlike the other two, she bore no visible wounds. "Don't think I've forgotten what you did on Amonkhet," the elf snarled, her usually soft voice turning vicious. "What guarantee do we have that you haven't led us straight into another one of the dragon's traps?"

Liliana took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Someday very soon the sheer stupidity of these people was going to drive her to madness. Luckily for her, Gideon cut off her response by trying (and failing) to get to his own feet. He stumbled down to his knees, face going pale as red seeped over his fingers. 

"Gids!" Chandra dropped down next to him, still holding her own ribcage together with one arm and stubborn will. 

"I'm...fine." Beefslab did manage to stand on the second try, letting go of Chandra the moment she winced. Nissa hesitated, still glaring at Liliana, before moving to his side and pressing a soothing green glow into his shoulder. Liliana stood still, crossing her arms as she surveyed the touching scene. 

_They're nothing but liabilities,_ the Raven Man whispered in her ear. _And it's not like they'll ever trust you now._ Liliana waved his words away as she would an irritating insect, stepping forward to poke at the imperfectly sealed wound in Beefslab's shoulder, then at Chandra's ribs. "Before we do anything else, let's get you two healed up." She straightened from her cursory inspection, ignoring their curious, suspicious, or surprised looks. "There used to be a market here--it might have what we need. Or at least some food." 

"You've...been here before?" Gideon asked, falling in behind her as Liliana turned towards the center of the ruined town. Chandra stumped gamely along after him, and Nissa stood frozen in silent disapproval for a second or two before she skipped up to whisper furiously to the pyromancer. Liliana kept one eye on her remaining 'backup' and one on the rising mist in front of them. She really didn't know how far she could push these planeswalkers, right now. And she still needed them. 

"Liliana," Gideon said, stomping up next to her. "Have you been here before? What is this place?" 

"I haven't been back in...oh, decades at least." She pretended to brush some sand off of her sleeves, unwilling to face the sympathy in their local muscle's expression. "It's changed." But the further into town they got, the more signs of life she saw. Ruined houses had been repaired, stained-glass windows refurbished. Over all of it hung the deadening mist, obscuring more than thirty or so feet around them and reeking of rot. Liliana could feel the necromantic magic in it, an artificial control that tingled unpleasantly on her skin. Collected in the invisible lines of her last contract. 

"So what's wrong?" he asked, so gently. Liliana wanted to gag, managed to turn it into a sneer. 

"Nothing." She could put on armor with the best of them. Hide what wounds Bolas had inflicted and pretend Amonkhet had never happened. 

"I'm going out on a limb here, Liliana," Gideon said, still quiet. When she glanced over her shoulder, Lili could see Nissa pressing more green light into Chandra's side about fifteen feet back. Maybe the nosy elf couldn't hear. Maybe. "I want to trust you, but I need you to be honest with me. What is this place?" 

They came upon what had once been a bustling market square, an open cobbled plaza with a few citizens drifting carefully through the fog. Everyone she saw was armed, all of them moving with furtive quickness like they didn't want to be caught in the open. It was a pale shade of the markets Liliana had begged to attend as a girl, as undead as the rest of these ruins. 

"This pathetic little town?" Lilian glared at him out of the corner of her eye. Maybe the harshness in her voice would disguise the lie. "This place doesn't matter at all."


	2. Chapter 2

They holed up in the remaining inn, a haggard old proprietor and his children the only other occupants. "We don't get many visitors these days," the old man said, bringing out a platter of fresh bread and goat cheese. Liliana couldn't fault the service: despite the desolate aura of the town, there was hot food and water to be had and the rooms they'd been shown to were fine, if dusty. The innkeeper didn't look wary of their haggard appearances, but then, the townsfolk hadn't looked much better. If less obviously bloody. "I'm just glad to be of service."

"What happened here?" Liliana asked, as Chandra helped Gideon unbuckle the straps on his defunct breastplate. 

The old man looked around as if expecting shades to jump out at any moment. "It's the Cabal," he said, twisting his hands in his apron. "Everything's been getting worse and worse since they moved in. There was a battle, a few days ago, up north. We thought the Church had come to rescue us..."

"They didn't win." Liliana didn't have to phrase it as a question. 

The innkeeper shook his head. "You see what they've done to the forest. They call it the Caligo Morass, now." 

"All the way to the river?" Liliana found herself leaning forward, ignoring the strange looks her companions were giving her. "And it's all controlled by the Cabal?" There was only one reason she was interested in the Cabal--the demon Belzenlok controlled it. And of the few lines left etched on her skin, Belzenlok's name (his _ownership_ ) was still written there. 

"Yes, that's what I said." The old man looked at her strangely. "Is there anything you need?" 

Lilian pulled back, sighed and flicked dirt off of her skirts. She glanced at Gideon, still pale from blood-loss, and Chandra, who was sitting far too straight to be comfortable. "We'll take any healing herbs you have." Liliana said. "And some more bread, if you have it." 

"I'll get right to it." 

He didn't quite shut the door all the way behind them, just pulled it to. The moment he was gone Liliana braced for a flood of questions, but there was silence. At least long enough that she opened her eyes and glanced around the room. Chandra was looking curious, Gideon concerned. Nissa had both arms crossed and was glaring back at her from a corner. 

"Well?" Liliana asked. "I'm waiting." 

"How do you know so much about this place?" Chandra asked first. "Is this your home plane? What's the Cabal, and why are they attacking this place?" 

"Why did you bring us here?" Nissa interrupted, quietly. 

"This is Dominaria, the 'center of the Multiverse.'" Lilian put air quotes around the phrase she'd heard so many times from jumped-up Tolarian mages. "Yes, I was born here. Right here, actually. This place used to be Vess." Chandra's face did a comical little 'oh' of realization, second only to the new heights achieved by Gideon's eyebrows. "The Cabal is a demon cult; last time I checked they weren't much more than that. It's surprising they've spread this far. Worrisome, I suppose, if you're worried about that kind of thing."

"And you're not?" Gideon probably didn't mean to sound like he was scolding her. Liliana sneered at him anyway. 

"Of course not. I have bigger things to worry about." 

"Right." He didn't press her on the issue, though he could have. A mark, perhaps of how tired he was--he leaned back against the headboard of the bed and closed his eyes. 

"Nissa?" Chandra asked. "You've been awfully quiet." 

Liliana could have done without the elf's input, but Nissa stirred and said coldly, "I'm waiting for her to convince me that she's not a traitor. That she won't turn us over to Bolas the moment our backs are turned." 

"Oh _please_ ," Liliana was sick of this, and she'd only been enduring it for a few hours. "Haven't you ever heard of _lying_ , oh wise druid? We were never going to win--he was ready for us. It was better to live and fight another day. Obviously my strategy worked better than yours." 

"We did get our butts kicked." Chandra said, grimacing as she shifted in her chair. "I'm open to ideas on how to _not_ have that happen again." 

Liliana should have jumped in at this point--she was so close to finally being free--but she hesitated, watching Nissa closely. No matter how reasonable her plan, the elf would most likely shoot it down if she knew Liliana's interest in the Cabal and the demon leading it. 

"This is where we said we'd meet Ajani," Nissa volunteered instead. Liliana managed not to roll her eyes. "Hopefully he'll have gathered other planeswalkers, like he said he would." 

"Yeah but..." Chandra shifted again in her chair. "Weren't we... _not_ supposed to go to Amonkhet?" 

Gideon sighed and spoke without opening his eyes, "We'll have to admit that we made a mistake. Because we did. The whole plan was a failure from beginning to end and we didn't--we don't even know if there's anything left living on that plane." 

Liliana remembered the smell of gods' blood in the air, the despairing screams of those few living left as the Eternals were loosed among them...

"It's no good dwelling on the past," she said firmly. "And Dominaria is a big plane. We could be here weeks trying to track down Ajani, though I have some suspicions as to where he might have landed." A big cat like that could have connections to the Church, or to the gladiatorial rings in Otaria. Though the thought made her skin crawl, visiting Benalia may be their quickest path. "There is something else--" she started to say, to lead into her hope of killing Belzenlok--only to be interrupted by a knock at the door. 

The girl had finally arrived with the herbs Lili had asked for. Nissa stepped forward, obviously expecting to take the lead on this, but Liliana waved her off. Sometimes plants and their uses stayed familiar across planes, a sort of cross-world connection that Liliana didn't bother considering fully--but she knew the plants here better than any Zendikari ever would. And she didn't need help. 

"Sorry there's not much," the girl said, as Liliana flipped quickly through the neatly labeled packets. "The soldiers who stayed here used up most of it, and things are getting harder to find now in the mist..." 

"It's fine." Liliana pulled a few out and handed the rest back. "I should be able to find what I need elsewhere." The girl curtsied and left without another word--her companions were not so easy to persuade. 

"You know how to heal?" Nissa asked incredulously, still holding out a hand for the herbs. Liliana glared at her and stood, shaking out her hair only to remember it was still caked with blood from the Luxa. This did not improve her mood, and she made a mental note of getting a proper bath before this horrible day was over. 

"Yes, actually. Like I said, I grew up here. I dare say I can use these plants better than you, and if our goal is to continue with this mad scheme of stopping Bolas, I'd prefer our fighters in one piece." 

Nissa hesitated, and they both stared at each other for a long minute. Finally, it was the elf who looked away, stepping back into the corner and looking down at the ground. Submissive. "I don't trust you," she said to the floor. "But you won't hurt them while I'm here." 

Chandra and Gideon were watching quietly, the pyromancer biting her lip and the Beefslab with more calculation in his eyes that she was used to seeing from him. 

"Be careful out there," he said at last, and somehow managed to sound genuine. It was nauseating. 

"I'll be fine," Liliana said with a brittle smile. "I'm home, aren't I?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> campaign note #1: I don't have a word limit, unlike Martha Wells  
> campaign note #2: Let Chandra Say Fuck

The second the necromancer was out of the room, Nissa turned to Gideon and said, "We should go." 

Gideon sat up--well, propped himself straighter against the back of the bed--and considered Nissa with a calm and serious expression. "I know it's a risk," he said. "But Liilana doesn't like Bolas any more than the rest of us do. We've never been to Dominaria before, and she knows her way around. Let's catch up to Ajani and whoever he's managed to recruit. Then we'll talk about whether or not she stays." 

"Are we not going to talk about Jace?" Chandra demanded. "He's out there somewhere, maybe really hurt! We have to at least try to find him." 

Gideon grimaced. "When you find a way to track someone through the Blind Eternities, be sure to let me know. I barely managed to follow you and Liliana here, and Jace was gone for a good minute before that. We have to trust that he'll recover on his own and meet up with us when he can. If nothing else, there'll be word on Ravnica." 

"You mean--" Chandra didn't finish her sentence. _You mean if he's dead_. The Guildpact would revert to paper, or do...something, probably. She wasn't a law mage. Chandra swallowed hard. 

Nissa shook her head. "I don't trust Liliana, and I don't trust any of the other planeswalkers Ajani can come up with. We need to prepare to fight Bolas on our own terms, on ground we choose." 

"Luring him into a trap won't be as easy as cornering the Eldrazi," Gideon warned. "And Zendikar's faced too much already." 

Nissa scowled. "You think I don't know that? I wasn't talking about Zendikar--I was talking about Ravnica." 

Both Gatewatch members turned and blinked at her. Nissa sighed and sat down, cross-legged, on the floor. She began to draw lines in the dust there, each one gleaming with a hint of magical power. The wood beneath began to shine, growing bark and small twigs as she worked. "We spent some time there, after Innistrad. I did my best to learn the leylines, though they had almost all been...artificially altered." She spat out the last two words like soap. "Of all the planes we've visited, and the ones Bolas is likely to be interested in, I believe Ravnica represents our best hope for, as you say Gideon, laying a trap."

It was possibly the most words Chandra had ever heard her put together at one time. "Wow Nissa," she said, looking over the incomprehensible tangle of lines the elf had drawn. "You came up with all that on the walk here?" 

Nissa gave her a small smile, then turned to look at Gideon. "We should go back there, now, and start gathering the guilds. All of that, plus the leyline work I need, would be easier with Jace. I was hoping Chandra could--"

The scream outside wasn't loud, exactly. It wasn't close to them. But all of them had heard too many screams recently not to recognize this one--nor could they ignore the sound of clashing metal and sucking cries of undead shades. Chandra cursed and staggered to her feet, already running for the front entrance. Gideon managed to follow suit, if only because Nissa slung his arm over her shoulders and half-carried him down the stairs with no apparent effort. 

Outside, night was falling early. The mist clung to everything, obscuring more than ten feet in every direction, though Chandra counted at least three buildings on fire. Soon there would be more of them--she felt her hair and hands ignite, her energy return in a rush. A zombie knight dressed in twisted black armor rushed her out of the fog, only to be blasted into pieces by her firebolt. The townsfolk were fighting back as well; she saw several of them mobbing a mounted zombie and dragging it to the ground, stabbing with pitchforks and pummeling with table legs. 

Not every scramble was going so swimmingly--she saw a dead aven on the ground not far from one of the fires, their wings twisted in a spiked black chain. Several townsfolk lay very still on the cobbled ground, their makeshift armor already dull with condensation. Chandra rushed out in to the middle of the fray and stoked her flame higher, brighter. "Come and get _me_ , you dead fucks!" she shouted, and swept another arc of flame through the black-shadow body of a shade that was trying to creep up on her. 

The fight was going fine by the time Liliana showed up. Even if the second undead knight had managed to cut deep into Chandra's shoulder (barely missing her vent pack). Even if Gideon was missing with more punches than he landed, his fists glowing dimly with golden energy. Nissa's vines were mostly leafless, grey things that the knight tore through with ease, even as lesser zombies collapsed under the insistent growth. 

Chandra didn't even see the necromancer come in from the other side of the square--the first inkling she had of Lili's presence was the zombie horse collapsing under its owner, suddenly rotted to dry bones. The knight's helmeted head twisted around a hundred and eighty degrees, staring uncannily at something behind him--it was then that Chandra saw Liliana, the fog shying away from her and her strange tattoos glowing with a faint purple light. 

She raised a hand, black energy swirling in her fist, and then she...hesitated. Just for a second, but Chandra saw it, saw the uncertainty on Liliana's face. It was such an unusual expression on her that at first Chandra thought it might have been a trick of the fading light, a shadow cast by the magical energy being flung across the square. Suddenly, the necromancer's expression twisted into shock and rage, all her aloof composure shattered by whatever she'd seen in the zombie knight's eyes. 

"No!" Liliana shouted, both hands clenching into fists. The undead she'd been controlling _shattered_ , rotten pieces exploding all over the square. Chandra had to duck a greyish hand that was flung in her direction--when she looked up, Liliana was marching across the open ground to where the town's fighters had cornered a living cultist. He was already dying, a spear pinning him to the ground, but Lili had never had to worry about getting answers from the dead. 

"Where is he?" she demanded, bulling through the gathered mob. Chandra started to run after her, then stumbled as the pain in her ribs reasserted itself. During the fight she'd been able to ignore it, but she was still very much hurt from Bolas's attentions. "Where is Josu?"

The cultist laughed, even as blood spattered from his mouth. Chandra reached out a hand towards Lili's shoulder, remembering how she'd tried to help Chandra on Kaladesh. But there was a coldness around her, a terrible leeching sensation that Liliana was _not_ in control of. Chandra thought she saw black wings out of the corner of her eyes, but when she flinched it was only Gideon coming to stand at her shoulder. 

"The daughter of Vess returns!" The dying man gurgled, even as the people around them backed up a few steps. "He knew, the Demonlord knew you would be coming. He took your brother, as is his right. He takes the dead, and he takes the living, and..." he wheezed wordlessly for a moment, hands fumbling for the blade in his chest. Liliana took it in one hand, her lips curled back in a vicious snarl. 

"What did Belzenlok do to my brother?" she growled, leaning in to press the spear deeper. Chandra couldn't tear her eyes away, though she could hear Nissa's sharp intake of breath at her side. 

The cultist gasped in pain, and then...smiled. "The Void awaits," he hissed, and his head lolled back. Dead. 

Liliana...didn't move. Chandra thought she would scream, or cry. Even braced herself for an onslaught of necromantic magic, a lashing out like she would have done. 

It was hard enough to believe that Liliana had brought them home, to her home. Harder still to match the enigmatic, collected woman she'd known for the past few months with the filthy, nearly feral creature in front of them now. But even as she watched Liliana collected herself, stood back from the black-robed body of the cultist and took a few deep breaths. Only then did she look over at the remainder of the Gatewatch, her expression once more cold and unreadable. 

"It appears I _am_ worried about Cabal matters after all," she said, as flippantly as if they were discussing the weather. "Unfortunately, Bolas is going to have to wait."


	4. Chapter 4

The innkeeper wasn't speaking to them. Gideon didn't blame him, after the events in the plaza. Though he was certain Liliana had helped by eliminating some of the undead, no one in town seemed to remember that part. They only remembered what happened after that--the cultist calling her the Daughter of Vess, her sadistic demands for information, the aura of death she trailed like a beautiful gown. Liliana had never let the unease of normal people bother her before, and she tried not to do so now. But Gideon saw the effort it took; the stiffness in her posture when folk whispered as they retreated to the inn, the fearful looks the children gave them before scurrying off to other tasks. 

Back in Gideon's room, Liliana set to shredding the stems of some aromatic plant she'd pulled out of a purse. She wouldn't look at them, but she spoke before he had to ask her. "A very long time ago," she said, and at first her voice was as hard and cold as the rest of her. "There was a minor noble family who lived in the Caligo Forest. They had two children, a boy and a girl. The boy went off to learn how to be a knight, a hero." Her voice grew scathing at the word, but softened again almost at once. "The girl was training how to be a healer.

"There was a war. They happened a lot in those days, I don't even remember--it doesn't matter who was fighting who. The boy fought, of course, on whichever side he thought was righteous. Somewhere close enough to home that when he was injured, his soldiers brought him here--there." Her hands shook, slightly. Liliana stopped until they were steady, then went on. 

"The girl was desperate to save him. She went out alone into the forest, to find the herbs she would need..." She picked up the bowl full of shredded leaves and mixed in some of the dried herbs the girl had given her. Still she wouldn't look at them, but there was such utter silence in the room that Gideon could hear the muttering of fighters outside the inn. 

"The girl was..foolish," Liliana said at last. "She disobeyed her teacher, she made the potion wrong. She was never very good at healing. Instead of helping her brother, she--" her voice broke, and Chandra shifted like she was about to reach out. Liliana coughed, fooling no one, and continued quietly, "Her brother died. Violently. Thanks the magic she had mixed into the potion, he then proceeded to kill everyone else in the house."

Gideon winced in sympathy. Chandra made a soft noise and stood up. Liliana shook her head furiously, paying attention only to the watery paste she was mixing in the bowl. 

"It was a long time ago. Hundreds of years." She said it almost viciously, like the time between then and now would keep her safe. "I haven't even thought of it in centuries." 

"And now?" Gideon asked, as gently as he could. Liliana leaned back, examining the finished bowl of poultice she had put together. 

"The demon Belznelok didn't always command the Cabal. Though this doesn't mean much to you, about a hundred years ago I was...in need of more power than I personally had access to."

"You sold your soul to _another_ demon?" Nissa sounded more shocked than sympathetic--not that Gideon could blame her. 

Liliana scowled, and just like that any trace of vulnerability was gone. She was once again the commanding death mage they all knew. "Even you are a _child_ compared to me, elf. Do not presume to tell me what I should or should not have done." She paused to take another deep breath, then continued coldly, "It appears that Belzenlok has gotten word of some of my more recent activities and decided to prepare his own...surprise. I found evidence of a ritual in Vess Manor--he and his cultists have raised my brother again as a lich." 

"So this is why we came here." Gideon sighed. He really couldn't have expected better from Liliana, but every time he thought he'd gotten the measure of her... "So you could kill Belzenlok like you did Razaketh."

"That isn't the _only_ reason," Liliana said, tipping her hand back and forth in an equivocating gesture. "I truly didn't know that the Cabal had come so far east. But Josu...he doesn't deserve what happened to him." Though she had to bite out the words, she added, "Either of the things that happened to him. I am. Asking. For your help to lay him to rest. Permanently. After that you can fuck off to Benalia, or Zendikar, or whatever." The unexpected vulgarity made Chandra cough. Liliana grinned, and the expression reminded him strongly of the crocodiles he'd seen on Amonkhet. "I'm not asking you to trust me," she said, looking at Nissa. "And I know better than to try to...encourage your help with Belzenlok the way I did Razaketh." Nissa nodded coldly, and Liliana inclined her head. "But with this? Will you help?"

Chandra and Nissa both looked at him first. Gideon took a deep breath and sighed, running a hand through his hair. He could still feel the dust and grit of Amonkhet, the desert and the wall Bolas had put him through repeatedly. His mind shied away from remembering the rest of that fight, so he gritted his teeth and returned to the problem at hand. 

"I think we can do some good here," he said at last. "If nothing else, killing the lich will put the innocents in the area in a better position to resist this Cabal and maybe take back their land. Since we don't have a better rendezvous point, we might as well take care of this before running off half-cocked. Chandra?"

"Oh, you know me, I'm all about running off half-cocked," Chandra shrugged with a grin. "But we should definitely help out where we can." She looked sideways at Liliana, still barely restraining her impulse to hug. "And I understand a bit about dealing with family history." 

"Nissa?" Gideon looked to the Zendikari elf, who was shaking her head slowly. 

"We need time to recover from what Bolas did to us," she said in her soft, implacable voice. "None of us are at full strength right now. Going after this Josu--" Liliana flinched at the name-- "is dangerous even with four of us. Honestly, we have bigger threats to worry about." 

Liliana bared her teeth at the echo of her earlier words but didn't answer. She seemed willing to accept their consensus on this, though with Liliana it was difficult to tell. Gideon frowned at her, unable to resist the smallest sliver of resentment that she had put them in this position. Couldn't she have just soul her soul to _one_ demon? More seemed excessive even to him. 

"It's three to one," he said at last, grudgingly. "Tomorrow we'll figure out how to go after Josu and put him to rest." 

No one commented on the fact that he'd given Liliana one of the votes. The necromancer relaxed just slightly, her relief visible only for a moment before her posture froze up again. 

"Excellent," she said, striving for breezy but coming off more exhausted. "Now, after every damn thing that has happened today, I plan to take a bath and then sleep for a good thirteen hours. So if you'll excuse me." None of them stopped her from turning on one heel and exiting the room, though Gideon did wonder briefly if the innkeeper and his young assistants would be willing to draw her a bath. 

"You think they'll stop ignoring her long enough to get hot water?" Chandra asked in unconscious echo. 

"I find myself entirely uninterested in the answer," Nissa said, and slumped back against the wall. Gideon hadn't realized how very tense she was until Liliana left the room. "I think...I need to sleep," she admitted with her eyes already shut. 

"Let's all get some rest," he said. "Everything will still be here when we wake up." 

Nissa smiled a small, crooked smile. "Are you sure about that?" she asked, but didn't wait for an answer before following Liliana out into the hall. 

Chandra hesitated for a moment longer, walking over to put one finger into the abandoned medicine Liliana had made and sniff it curiously. After her story, neither of them much wanted to test it out. "Do you think she's...well, not telling the truth, I think she probably is, but...I don't know, can we trust her?" she glanced back over her shoulder. 

Gideon shrugged, then grimaced as the gesture tugged on his wound. "I'd like to think so," he said, as honestly as he could. "She's helped us out before, sometimes when she truly didn't need to. Killing a lich is never a bad thing."

"You could say that killing a demon isn't, either," Chandra pointed out, and Gideon smiled. 

"You want her to stay, don't you?" 

Chandra made a face and looked away, wiping her hand clean on a dusty bit of armor. "I don't know anymore...I guess I just don't want to lose anyone else." She let the silence sit for a moment, both of them remembering that they were one Gatewatch member short, now. Then she looked back up with a forced smile. 

"Well, I'm going to sleep for about a million years, so I'll see you on the other side of that. Good night, Gideon." 

There really wasn't anything that could keep her down for long. Gideon smiled back at her. "Good night, Chandra."


	5. Chapter 5

They all had nightmares. 

Gideon dreamed he was wading through a swamp, with the other Gatewatch members behind him. They were counting on him to know what to do. There was something out here they needed to kill, something terrible...he could feel it watching them. 

"Where's Jace?" Chandra's voice echoed unnaturally, and he turned to shush her--only to see that Jace had vanished somehow. "You have to go get him!" she demanded, but he didn't know where Jace had gone. 

"How could you have let him go like that?" Nissa asked sternly. "Weren't you looking out for him?" 

Gideon tried to protest, but he didn't have any defense. Around them, the swamp began to smell less like water and more like blood. 

"I'm going to kill Belzenlok," Liliana announced, even though they weren't anywhere near Dominaria. "You don't have to help me but I'll probably die and that'll be your fault too." 

"Don't go off by yourself, Liliana--" but she was already gone. A familiar laugh filled the air around them--a dragon's laugh. Gideon put his back to Chandra and Nissa's, reassured by their presence. 

But it was a crocodile's voice that spoke into the black night, and suddenly Gideon was back in the deadly pyramid that Bontu had ruled. He looked around for Chandra and Nissa, but they were gone. It was only him and the dead god on her broken throne. Black tar dripped from her face, her arms and robes were soaked with it. Her eyes were nothing but cavities in a skull-like face. 

**"Have you learned yet, Kytheon Iora?"**

"What is it you expect me to know?" he demanded, as he once had. 

**"You are looking for vindication when what you need is absolution. You should have died like I did, at the whims of the God-Pharaoh."**

"You're wrong!" Gideon shouted as loud as he could, but the words sounded empty and small next to the all-consuming weight of Bontu's knowledge. "I--we're going to kill him! We're going to--"

 **"We?"** Bontu asked, amused. Her mouth gaped in a horrible parody of a smile, tar dripping from her crooked teeth. **"You cannot even keep five people on the same path. How do you expect to defeat a god?"**

Gideon fumbled desperately for an answer, but just as he had before Chandra's questions and Nissa's demands, there was nothing. There was nothing he could say, or do. Bontu did not laugh, only loomed over him. Tar began to creep up his legs, towards his chest, and he--

\---

In her sleep, it wasn't Amonkhet they were fighting on, it was Kaladesh. Chandra saw Eternals smashing filigree fighters to pieces, blue mummies dragging children out into the street and running them through. The lazotep monsters resisted her fire, even as she poured more and more energy into each blast. 

She saw Mrs. Pashiri go down in the jaws of an eternalized manticore, it's tail already coated in blood. She realized that she was screaming, but she couldn't even hear it over the clamor of battle. 

"You brought them here!" Baral's voice thundered in her head, so much like Jace's telepathy and yet nothing at all alike. "Monster!" 

"No, I didn't, I swear!" Chandra found herself in chains, bound in the same arena they'd faced Tezzeret in. Eternals and other horrors swarmed the stands instead of people--she saw her mother lying across the barrier, half of her body facing a different direction. " _Mama_!" The fire that burned around her obscured her from the monsters, but she knew it wasn't hot enough to kill them. Chandra stoked herself hotter and hotter, until she could feel the vent pack vibrating on her back, could feel the flames drying her tears before they fell. She'd only felt this hot once before, a sun about to explode, until Nissa had put her arms around her...

But Nissa never came.

\---

It was snowing in Nissa's dream. She was back on Zendikar, in her own dear forests. The world hummed around her, connected, whole, and she was only a small part of that endless nexus. She held out a hand to catch a flake, because it was the wrong season for snow, wasn't it? 

Only then she realized it was ash. And as soon as she realized that, she began to feel a familiar deadness creeping along her leylines, an empty hunger that whispered with madness. She summoned Ashaya, she pulled as much energy out of the forests as she could to raise an army, but she realized with horror that it was her own magic draining life away--with every elemental she called, another piece of Bala Ged died and turned to dust. Frantically she tried to stop, to return the life she had borrowed so often. Trees groaned around her, swaying on suddenly unsteady roots. White lattices crept up their sides, eldrazi spawn skittering like horrible parasites over the beautiful wood. _She_ was the corruption, the--

She had faced nightmares like this before. Nissa stopped fighting, banishing the forest and the eldrazi alike with a thought. She stood on an unfamiliar shore, blue water crashing on dark sand. Behind her, smoky mountains rose in the distance. She thought she saw the outline of a dragon, briefly, against the sky. 

"The hand that moves," she said, tasting the words like salt on the wind. The strange Trial she'd undergone on Amonkhet seemed like weeks or months ago, not days. Certainly she had not been able to master whatever lesson the angel...if it was that...had been trying to teach her. Bolas had effortlessly corrupted her control over the leylines, and her amateur manipulation of Kefnet was useless now that the god was dead. 

Quietly, Nissa sat cross-legged on the damp sand, surveying the retreating tide to consider the question. 

\---

Liliana dreamed of ravens. She was lost in the Caligo Forest, only that was impossible. She knew this forest like the back of her hand, like the pattern of her favorite dress. Like the healing recipes she'd been forced to memorize as an apprentice. 

But she _was_ lost, searching desperately along the ground for the plant that would save her brother's life. Every time she was about to give up, a raven would caw and, once she'd looked up at it, fly off deeper into the woods. She would follow for a while, only to lose track of it in the dark branches and start searching the ground again. 

Finally, he appeared. The Raven Man stepped out from behind a tree like he'd always been there, and Liliana looked up the same way she had so many years ago, when he first appeared. 

"You," she said coldly, straightening from her crouch. 

"Me," the Raven Man replied in his hoarse whisper. "You are very close, Lili, to your freedom." 

"My freedom, or your plot?" she demanded. "Why should I do _anything_ you encourage me to do?" 

"Because my goals and yours are the same," the Raven Man said with a familiar smile. "I've only ever helped you, Liliana Vess."

"Helped me?" Liliana's laugh was choked with fury. She raised a hand and a score of ravens collapsed to the ground, their miserable lives coalescing in her palm. " _Helped_ me? You were the one who lied to me about Josu in the _first place_." 

"Sometimes steel must be tempered to get stronger." His eyes, the same unsettling gold as the potion he had once given her, shone with their own light in the dark woods. 

"You wanted my spark to ignite." It wasn't a question, but he smiled and nodded anyway. Liliana cursed and turned away, kicking away a raven corpse. "Why?" 

"I want you to be the best you can be," he said, his tone turning solicitous, cloyingly sweet. "Haven't you used the Chain Veil to your advantage? Haven't I helped you free yourself from your contracts?"

" _You_ haven't done a godsdamned thing." Liliana hissed. " _I_ pay the price for using the Chain Veil, _I_ worked to free _myself_. I want you to _leave me alone_ , you bastard." 

"Leave you alone with your 'Gatewatch'?" The Raven man smiled again, showing a single gold tooth. "Oh yes, if you want to be alone that'll certainly happen sooner rather than later."

Liliana took a sharp breath to retort, but after her dismal preformance this afternoon she couldn't quite manage one. Finally she said, "Screw you," and ignore the Raven Man's condescending laughter. 

"You need me, Liliana," he said, like he knew he'd won. "I'm the only one who looks out for you, besides yourself." 

"Go away." 

"Oh, Lili, don't be mad--"

"I said GO AWAY!" Liliana's blast of necromantic energy was strong enough to topple the nearest trees. Ravens fell like rain, but she could _feel_ them dying, and where the Raven Man should have been there was only empty air. She spun around to see him, still smiling, raise his hands and step back behind the tree. 

She didn't even realize she was crying until she felt the tears run down her face.


	6. Chapter 6

They gathered in the common room late next morning, at least in part so that all of them would remain civil. Nissa sat at the table facing the stairs, not the door. Watching for Liliana. She knew that the other two wanted to help the necromancer, and truly Nissa understood the pain the past could bring. But she did not trust Liliana, any more than she had trusted Sorin Markov when they'd traveled together in Akoum. All so many dead rocks now, if the mountains even stood. Still, Liliana brought death to everything she touched--it was her nature. 

Nissa could not stand any more death. 

She said none of this to the others. Aiding the forest here was acceptable, as long as they kept a close eye on the necromancer; Nissa would relish returning this ancient land to what she could sense of its former glory. But after that, they would leave Liliana behind and with her, any chance of Bolas's machinations following them onto this plane. 

Gideon joined her not from the upstairs rooms, but from outside. Though he was still favoring his right shoulder, his color had much improved from yesterday. Nissa had never been much of a healer--forcing life's pure energy through one's body was not quite the same as true healing--but she found that her hands itched to set Gideon to rights. To _help_ him, as he had helped her without asking. 

He smiled when he saw her, brushing a few strands of loose hair away from his face and holding up the sword he must have asked for from the village guards. "How're you feeling?" he asked, coming over to sit with her. 

It was a question that demanded an answer. "Fine," Nissa said, because she didn't have the words to encompass her current state of mind. Tired, from a rest where she lapsed into nightmares every time her concentration faltered. Wary, that Bolas or his agents would follow them through that door to finish them while they were weak. There was so much she didn't understand, so many things she couldn't wrap her thoughts around. And on top of that, the corrupted leylines around the Caligo Morass were sapping constantly at her energy, sucking at her mana to ease their own pain. 

"I've been learning a bit more about the situation around here," Gideon said, barely listening to her one-word reply. "Apparently there are still some Church soldiers in the area who will be able to help us, if we can get in contact with them. And there's a city a few days ride from here, Benalia, that's pretty much the center of civilization for this area. It sounds like that'll be the place to get in contact with Ajani, if he's here. This plane is...a big place. Lots of oceans." 

"It's very old," Nissa said, walling off her magic from the hungry Morass. "Older than the Roil." It was the only thing she could think to compare it too--though she would once have said that the Roil was as old as Zendikar, she knew better now. She had not yet attempted to speak to the plane itself, afraid that her voice would be corrupted if she spoke from here. (Afraid that her voice would forever be corrupted by what Bolas had done to her.) 

"Is there coffee?" Chandra slumped into the chair next to Nissa, hiding a yawn behind one hand. Her armor was crooked, her vent pack dangling haphazardly from one shoulder. There were dark circles under her eyes, lines remaining on her forehead that Nissa ached to smooth away. "I really need a cup of coffee. Or like, three of them." 

"They call it chikoree, I think, but it's bitter and it wakes you up." Gideon leaned back to wave at one of the children who inhabited the inn, asking for breakfast and chikoree. 

They were almost done eating by the time Liliana Vess joined them. Chandra, as she'd promised, had drunk two and a half cups of chikoree and eaten every scrap of the simple breakfast. Nissa had only been able to pick at hers, and Gideon only reassured them that he'd already eaten. Nissa wasn't quite sure she believed him. 

Liliana was as clean and polished as ever, though even she couldn't manage to completely repair the gown she'd been wearing into a pre-Amonkhet state. The visible rips and tears only added to the impression that she'd recently crawled out of a grave--an impression that Liliana did nothing to deter. 

"So, what's the plan?" she asked brightly, despite the circles under her own eyes. "I am ready and willing to follow instructions." 

Even Gideon winced at that. Nissa had to take a drink to clear the sweet-rot taste from her mouth. 

"You know more about Jo--about the undead than I do," Gideon said, correcting himself without prompting. Nissa watched Liliana's eyebrow twitch. "What exactly do you do to kill a lich?" 

Liliana sighed theatrically and poured herself a cup of chikoree. "They are, unfortunately, extremely powerful entities. They know everything they knew while they were alive, in addition to being invulnerable to normal weaponry."

"What about fire?" Chandra asked, though her grin was not as big as usual. Liliana inclined her head. 

"It would take extraordinary measures, but yes, they can be burned. For my part, unmaking Josu--the lich--would have to include the Chain Veil, and you all saw what it did to me last time I tried that." 

Liliana, delirious on the banks of the Luxa as the rest of them looked on in horror. The blood of the river mingling with the blood that seeped from impossibly perfect lines etched on her skin in purple light. 

She had been much weakened after that, panting and stumbling as they ran through the dying city. Perhaps there had been other reasons she was slow to defy Bolas. 

"There's one other thing." Liliana toyed with the rim of her cup, suddenly fascinated with the simple clay pottery. Her expression was twisted up into a grimace, though the words were as smooth as ever. "Once I--once _we_ destroy Josu, Belzenlok will come for me. He knows that I've been hunting demons, somehow. He raised Josu specifically for me." Her voice was bitter, naked with hatred. It was perhaps the one emotion Liliana felt comfortable with. 

"And if you use the Chain Veil to destroy Josu..." Gideon didn't have to finish the sentence. 

It was just another manipulation, all the worse for being true. Nissa ground her teeth together, biting back cruel words. She had already made her position on this matter clear. But better to stay with Gideon and Chandra, to 'watch their backs', than to abandon them to the machinations of the necromancer. She had failed to protect them on Amonkhet--she would not fail again. 

"We'll think of something," Gideon said, and pushed himself back from the table. "Ready to head out?" 

"Where--I haven't eaten!" Liliana protested, pulling her plate closer. 

"Then you should have come down earlier." Gideon didn't snap at her--Nissa didn't think she'd ever heard Gideon raise his voice at one of them. But there was a hardness to him, a unyielding stone that brought a familiar sneer to Liliana's face. 

Nissa stood up, and Chandra followed a moment later, glancing quickly between all of them and Liliana. The necromancer scowled at them before downing her mug of chikoree and slamming the cup down onto the table. She stood as well, and their ragtag group left without another word.


	7. Chapter 7

Gideon was exhausted. He didn't know how much longer he could hold the Gatewatch together, not without Jace. Nissa had never been much of a people person, for all her loyalty, and Liliana...gods curse her, he didn't know what Liliana wanted anymore. To be free of her contract? Certainly. But what lengths would she go to in pursuit of that goal? He wanted to help her, and they could certainly use her in the fight against Bolas...but he wouldn't endanger the others for her sake. That was a choice they would have to make together. 

For now, all he could do was approach the ruined stone circle, not unlike the one they'd arrived near when they first planeswalked to Caligo, and try and get some help. 

This place was different from the ruined buildings around town, the rehabilitated churches and ramshackle stone houses. The white stone of the ruin was untouched, even in the swampy mess, surrounded by three pillars of the same white stone at least sixty feet tall. Standing atop one of them, her wings half-spread in a meditative pose, was an armored angel. 

Gideon stepped forward onto the circle, seeing the angel shift and look down at him but unable to make out an expression.

"Hello? We've come to speak with the leader of the Caligo defense. Gerrel, innkeeper in the town of Vess, sent us." 

For several long heartbeats there was no answer--long enough for Liliana to snort and cross her arms. But then the angel spread her wings, leapt down from the pillar and landed neatly in front of them. Up close, he could see her armor was dented, her white tabard stained with old blood. 

"Who are you?" she asked, her eyes white with divine fire. 

"My name is Gideon Jura," he said, and didn't even feel the strangeness in it, after so many years. "This is Chandra Nalaar, Nissa Revane, and Liliana..." he hesitated, then left off her last name with a glance back towards the necromancer. It wasn't his place to give out her secrets. Not here, where they were so clearly painful. "We're here to help." He turned back to the angel with more confidence. "We know you're Rael, Battle Angel and Protector of Caligo. You led the battle here." 

Rael looked away with a snort, one hand still on the hilt of her sword. "Then you know I failed." 

"You lost a battle," Gideon said. "That doesn't mean you failed." 

A little bit of life came into Rael's expression--it was a sneer, but it was more than the blank, dead look she'd had before. "Platitudes will not stop the Cabal." 

"Yes, he can be annoying that way." Liliana said without prompting. She shook out her hair, somehow smooth and shining again today. Gideon sometimes thought she'd rather lose a limb than be seen in disarray for one second longer than necessary. "We're here to offer you our help." Gideon couldn't help it--he turned to look at her with a little bit of shock. Liliana only shook her hair again, looking pointedly at the angel and not making eye contact. 

Rael only snorted. "You should have come earlier. My forces are scattered, hiding. If we try to engage the Cabal again they'll die. No offense..." she looked over the four of them, standing a little less ragged than yesterday, a little more ragged than they had been two days before. "But I'm not willing to get soldiers killed for your conscience." 

"We're not here to make ourselves feel better," Chandra said indignantly. She snapped her fingers, let a flame dance over her gloved hands. "We're powerful mages, all of us."

"We think we have a way to defeat the lich Josu," Gideon said, trying for confidence. He glanced back at Liliana for confirmation, and the necromancer nodded with a grim smile. 

"You know the name of their commander?" Rael asked sharply, her eyes narrowing. 

"I--we--can do more than defeat him," Liliana announced, meeting the angel's stare with her own dark eyes. "We will lay him to rest." 

Gideon watched hope war with resignation on Rael's face. The angel's hand went to her sword hilt, but he was no longer afraid she would draw it on them. Finally she glanced over her shoulder, into the marsh and nodded to herself. When she turned back, it was with the same grim smile Liliana wore. "Tell me your plan," she said.


	8. Chapter 8

Liliana spent the time it took to gather the troops preparing her ritual inside the Manor. She banished the others outside, mostly because she didn't want to put up with Chandra's chatter, Nissa's distrustful stares, or Gideon's stolid encouragement. She had always preferred the silence of the dead, which the Manor offered plenty of. Though no physical manifestations lingered here, her memories were more than enough to fill the halls.

She set out candles, drew lines of power with pale chalk supplied by one of the Benalish mages. It wasn't what she would have preferred, but anything was better than being unprepared when facing a lich as powerful as Josu. Belzenlok had invested quite a bit of power in raising her brother, and Liliana wasn't going to underestimate him again.

Eventually, it was Gideon who came to tell her the plan. "I'm going to distract the ground troops once you start the ritual. Chandra and Nissa are going to be running defense outside the Manor, while the Benalish troops hold the inner grounds." He hesitated, like he wanted to say something but wasn't sure...

"Spit it out," Liliana snapped, brushing chalk dust from her hands. It would have been better to draw the symbols in blood, as Belzenlok had, but she didn't think her 'friends' would be on board with that.

"When this is done," he said, looking anywhere but at her. "What are--I mean, are you planning on sticking around Dominaria for a while?"

Liliana looked at him incredulously. "Are you trying to re-recruit me?" she asked. "I don't think your elf would be very pleased with that."

Gideon grimaced. "She's not  _ my _ elf--forget it. I just thought..."

"That you're all still going to die if you fight Bolas again?" Liliana asked brightly. "Because the answer is yes."

"But that's the thing, though," Gideon shook his head, running a hand through his somehow-still-lustrous hair. “I don’t believe you’re working for him. And you’re still a powerful ally. I’d rather have you in my corner than his.”

“Neither of you have me ‘in your corner.’” Liliana made elaborate quote-marks with her fingers. “Once this is done, I kill Belzenlok. And then I do whatever the hell I want. Understand?” 

Gideon only heaved out a big sigh and nodded, still looking pointedly at the ground. He was like a child being scolded, as if looking non-threatening was enough to assuage any insult. “Of course. You make your own choices. I just want you to know that there  _ is _ a choice.” 

Liliana sneered. She dropped the piece of chalk and dusted off her hands, keeping her shoulders perfectly straight and her head unbowed. “Everything’s ready,” she said firmly. “Once I start the ritual, Josu and his forces  _ will _ come.” She did  _ not _ add that she wouldn’t use the Chain Veil until her brother threatened her. Three planeswalkers, even at the ebb of their strength, ought to be able to deal with his physical assault while Liliana took on the spells that held him here. 

Gideon nodded, classic Beefslab determination written all over his face. “I’ll let the others know.” Liliana had turned away, already gathering the murky edges of her power, when he said, “Remember what I said yesterday, Liliana. I’m asking for a reason to trust you.”

_ You won’t find one here _ , she thought, glancing over her shoulder. He stood in the remains of the grand hall, the roof long ago collapsed around him. She thought, uncharitably, that he nearly matched the ugliness of the dead house, wrecked and abandoned. “I’m starting to think the druid is the only one left in this group with a single speck of brain,” she said instead. “I’m not asking you to  _ trust  _ me, Beefslab. I certainly don’t trust you.” 

It was a lie, and it shocked her to realize it. 

There was far too much knowing in Mr. Invulnerable’s face, and Liliana turned away. Angrily, she sent a surge of death-chill into the chalk circle, lighting the runes in ghostly fire. Gideon’s clunky, armored footsteps retreated from the ruined hall, and she was finally left to do her work. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brought to you by Actual Good Chandra [characterization](https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/burn-2017-01-04)
> 
> and this chapter also begins the Rehabilitation of Liliana Vess...I did not expect this.

Chandra was ready for a fight. She was at  _ least _ as ready as the rest of the soldiers they’d rounded up, most of whom were nursing as many broken bones as she was. The fire fizzed and popped under her skin, itching to come out. From the cover of the wild jungle that made up the grounds of Vess Manor, she paced back and forth in a muddy line, craning her neck to see out between the branches. 

Nissa had been busy fortifying their position over the last few hours, sitting cross-legged in a dense patch of grass and flowers that had grown up around her. Chandra had tried to meditate with her...sort of. But it was  _ hard _ to meditate when there was a battle coming, and her own magic didn’t  _ want _ to be quiet! 

Even like this, doing what she loved best, Nissa looked haggard. Chandra resolved to get her something nice when they got back to town, if she had to beg, borrow, or steal it. She wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to  _ get _ her yet, just that it had to be nice enough to take her friend’s mind off of...everything. Nissa was too quiet for her own good, sometimes.

Gideon emerged from the manor house and was talking to the angel. Rayla or Raine or something. “Gids!” Chandra waved furiously, glancing back at Nissa as she trotted over. 

“—leave it to me,” the angel said, and clasped Gideon’s forearm tightly for a moment. Looking at Chandra, she said, “You know your place in the line, pyromancer?” 

Chandra grinned at the title. “I’ll keep your kids safe, don’t worry!” Rael hid a small smile and bowed slightly before marching back into the undergrowth. Gideon looked after her for a long moment, his expression thoughtful. 

“What’s that look for?” Chandra asked, poking at his face. “I can see the gears spinning.” 

Gideon only ducked out of the way, catching her hand gently in his. Still distracted, he said, “Just thinking about what we do next.”

Chandra sighed and looked at him, really  _ looked _ . “You’re always trying to plan things out too far, Gids. We’ve got a fight in front of us, right now. Don’t worry about the big bastard yet.” 

Gideon blinked. Looked down and met her eyes. Chandra smiled again like she had for Rael, a classic jaunty grin.  _ See, everything’s good here! _

“You’re right,” he said, but he didn’t look convinced. “Chandra, are you—”

“I’m fine,” she said, preemptively. Only then she realized he was still holding her hand, and pulled it free. “Oh look, is that the incoming hordes of undead? I should go take care of that...” From inside the manor, a pale purple light was beginning to rise. There was no sign of the Cabal yet, but better safe than sorry. She definitely did  _ not _ run back towards Nissa, she just...walked really fast. 

The promised horde of undead didn’t take long. The lesser zombies came first, slain soldiers in tattered Benalish armor and unlucky farmers and other, older corpses. They were followed by a rank of knights similar to the one Liliana had taken apart in the town square, skeletal faces hidden by black armor and horses trailing their own entrails. And behind  _ them _ were the lit censers and shadowed robes of cultists. 

Seeing all of that step out of the shadows of the trees, Chandra felt a flare of nervous energy. The tips of her fingers tingled, her breathing started to speed up. Next to her, Nissa leaned on her staff and watched them come. 

“I can see why the Benalish lost the first fight,” she said softly, her dark green eyes scanning over the enemy forces. “Where do you think the lich is?” 

“Is that it?” Chandra pointed to a hulking shadow, coming up from the mud of the river a couple hundred feet away. It was only vaguely humanoid, ten feet tall and covered in greyish skin that split in the center to reveal a gaping cavity of necromantic energy. 

“You’d have to ask  _ her _ .” Nissa glanced back towards the house. A fell wind was beginning to pick up, carrying the scent of old bones and rotten blood. A few of the soldiers were glancing around as well, but their attention was focused more on the outside. For now. 

Chandra felt fire crackle like lightning over her hands. “Gods, I forgot zombies were so  _ slow _ .” The main force was still about a hundred feet away, shambling forward. She could faintly hear the droning chants of the cultists. She lifted up onto her toes, bouncing a little with energy. “Hey, Nissa?” 

“Chandra?” It was always hard to tell exactly what Nissa was looking at, with those solid green eyes. But Chandra could have sworn Nissa gave her a sideways look and a tiny smile, like she already knew what Chandra was gonna say. 

“What’da say we give these Dominarians a show?” 

“You know I’ll be with you.” And even as she was saying it, Nissa crouched down to put her hand on the mossy ground. WIth a pulse of brilliant green energy, the soft dirt around them heaved itself upward. 

Chandra almost lost her balance, laughing even as she caught the trunk of a small tree that crawled up into the arm of a ten-foot tall elemental. “ _ That’s _ what I’m talking about!” she whooped as the elemental began to march forward, carrying both her and Nissa along with it. Nissa, still kneeling on it’s shoulder, smiled up at Chandra with the color of magic in her eyes. 

The swaying stride of the elemental was no obstacle for Chandra’s fire blasts. There were too many zombies for precision to matter, anyway. She heard a ragged cheer from the Benalish behind her as the first few undead exploded in sunrise-orange and golden fire. Smaller elementals burst up from the open earth around them, knee high creatures made of twigs and grass and swamp mud. Chandra saw many of them sporting colorful mushroom caps, while others crawled across the ground on fungal tentacles. 

Gods but it felt good to be competent. Chandra saw a huddle of cultists converving in the back and  _ grinned _ . She took a deep breath, and then another, stoking the fire between her hands. The ball of flame grew bigger, the size of an orange, and then a jackfruit, and then—she let it go. With a scream like a phoenix the fireball streaked across the field and burst among the cultists, disrupting their spell. The wave of necrotic energy burned across the field, sucking the life from their own zombies as well as several of Nissa’s little friends before dispersing. 

The big gray beast roared with a sound like a hundred death-screams. It started across the field towards them, slowly at first, and then faster and faster. It’s arms were long enough to help propel it, long claws tearing furrows in the soft earth as it came. Purplish energy trailed from it’s open chest cavity as it barrelled towards Nissa’s side of the elemental. Just as the big green creature turned and set itself to face this new threat, a six-foot tall ball of golden energy slammed into the demon’s side.

Gideon’s magic sparked and gleamed as he tackled the undead monster, knocking it off of it’s collision course. Chandra put two fingers in her mouth to whistle appreciatively as Gids set himself into a low crouch, a borrowed sword in one hand as he faced off with the gray beastie. He glanced over his shoulder, his smile just visible through the play of light across his face, before the monster brought one of it’s hooked hands down at him. 

Some cultists got through. Three planeswalkers, even at the top of their strength, could not have matched the numbers the Cabal put forward. Chandra couldn’t pay attention to the clamor of swords and screams behind her. She had too much to deal with in front of her. Nissa’s elemental was overwhelmed by a swarm of zombies, and by the time Chandra blasted them free their tree friend was nothing but a scattered pile of moss and branches. Nissa cracked a cultist over the head with her staff on the way down, freeing her sword with a graceful motion. 

“Isn’t  _ she _ supposed to be doing something by now?” Nissa asked, stabbing back towards the Manor. She used the momentum to whirl and cut off the arm of an approaching zombie, but she didn’t move fast enough to avoid the rest of the creature’s lumbering attack. Fingers that had rotted down to bones raked down her side, tearing green leather armor and cloth. Nissa stumbled back even as Chandra threw a quick bolt, searing the rest of the zombie to charcoal. 

“Are you alright?” Chandra ducked the swing of an undead knight, putting the remains of the elemental between the skeletal horse and herself. She could feel herself slowing down, her fires burning low. Not enough time to recover, after Amonkhet. And her chest was aching something fierce where Bolas had hit her. 

“I’m fine,” Nissa said, but she was out of breath too. The elf put her back to the small hill of elemental, sword held loosely in one hand. Five of her little fungi friends swarmed up over the knight, some of them ripping and tearing with sharp sticks for arms while others simply oozed acidic slime. “How are you?” 

“You know me!” Chandra forced a flare back into her hands and hair, sending a comforting wave of warmth across them both. “I’m always ready to go!” Dumb, that was dumb, why had she said that?

Gideon had put out the purple fire of the big monster’s chest and was busy plowing through the back ranks. Some kind of hunched, spindly figures too tall to be human were casting noxious spells in his direction, all of which blew harmlessly around his shield. 

Just as Chandra was getting ready to throw herself back into the fray, a hush came over the field. Something unnatural. The zombies froze in place. An undead horse paused mid rear, its knight’s helmet turned unerringly towards the Manor. Even the sound of the Benalish defense faded away with terrible speed. 

And in that silence, Liliana spoke. “Your name is Josu Vess. You were older than me by two years. You liked apples, and horses, and games of sport. You taught me how to ride. And you are  _ dead _ .” The last word rang like a bell in the open air, a spell so strong that even Chandra felt it in her bones: the urge to give up, to lay down and  _ rest _ . To let her flesh rot and her spirit seep into the ground. 

Nissa grabbed her arm painfully tight, strong hands digging in through her sleeve, and Chandra shook free of the magic. A terrible metallic scream spiralled up out of the woods, like the sound iron made when wrenched too far out of shape. It sounded like the gearhulks had, after the rebels got hold of them. But even as she listened, Chandra heard the screaming change—it warped, lowered, grew more human, until it just sounded like a man. It went on for too long, for what seemed like hours, and even when the scream began to falter Chandra flinched from the ancient pain in the almost-human voice. 

Finally,  _ finally _ , Josu was quiet. All around her, zombies dropped back to the ground. Some cultists did too, though after a moment they began to stir. The knights crumpled over the keeling bodies of their horses, the necromancy powering them dispelled. The hags Gideon had been fighting fled through the dead trees, their shrieks stirring the swamp back to life. Nissa swayed abruptly, and Chandra turned to catch her. For being so strong, Nissa was light in her arms. Chandra tried to lift her, then gasped as her ribs protested. Instead she lowered them both to the ground, collapsing back on the mossy little hill their elemental had made. 

Gideon made his way over to them, picking his way across the torn and bloody field. His armor was newly covered in dirt and still with the great hole in the pauldron that had been there since Amonkhet. Chandra hadn’t asked him how he got it, what had happened. Whatever it was, it had made it through his magic, and she didn’t know of  _ anything _ that could do that. 

It didn’t take a genius to figure out it had been Bolas. 

“Everyone all right?” he asked. 

“Peachy keen.” Chandra gave him a very tired thumbs up. “How’re you?” 

Gideon’s lips tugged into a reluctant little smile as he held out a hand to help her up. Chandra pulled Nissa with her, and all three of them began to limp back towards the Manor. From the grounds, a very belated cheer went up. Chandra raised a fist like she had on Kaladesh, even if these weren’t her people. The meaning was the same. 

Rael met them at the entrance to the grounds. The soldiers were gathering the wounded and the dead, their previously wounded cleric directing triage from his position propped against a tree stump. “The lich is gone,” the battle angel said, no ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’ or anything. “I can sense it. For that, you and your...companion...have my thanks.” There was no mistaking how she looked back towards the Manor when she said ‘companion’ and Chandra found herself scowling. Liliana  _ had _ helped! They couldn’t have won this fight without her, and Rael was going to play coy because she’d used death magic to do it?

She opened her mouth to say something, but Gideon beat her to it. “It was our honor to work with you, Rael,” he said, glancing warningly at Chandra, who snorted. “I know there is still more to do to clear this area of Cabal influence, but I believe my  _ companions _ and I are needed elsewhere.” There was no mistaking how he emphasized the word. “Is there any chance you might know a leonin named Ajani Goldmane?” 

Rael hummed thoughtfully, a sound that actually filled the air with golden light. Chandra felt the pain in her chest recede. “I cannot recall any leonin by that name. But you would have more luck in Benalia City. It is a grand place, home to the Church of Serra. I will be happy to provide you a letter of introduction.” 

Gideon nodded seriously, and when Nissa leaned towards him he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She didn’t even flinch, but her hand was still wrapped tightly around Chandra’s. “Where’s Liliana?” 

Rael glanced again at the ruined house looming over them. “Still inside. None of my men wished to approach her.” There was a sort of unspoken addition that Rael hadn’t liked the idea of talking to her either. Chandra set her jaw and marched  _ through  _ the angel, forcing Rael out of her way. She would have let go but Nissa came with her, sighing. 

Liliana had arranged herself on the floor next to her circle. The runes she’d drawn were black, burned deep into the stone. The air smelled like scorched metal, and Lili was bleeding. It was easiest to see on her face—the long, perfect lines, the deep cuts. Elsewhere was simply a mask of blood, red and weeping. 

The Chain Veil was in her hand. There was no blood on it.

“Liliana?” It was Gideon who stepped forward, moving slowly. Liliana looked at him, but her eyes were focused somewhere else. The sneer, however, was far too familiar. 

“Thanks  _ ever so much _ for your ‘help,’” she bit out each word. “How could I even  _ think _ to manage without you?”

“Would you rather have been overrun by cultists?” Nissa demanded coldly. She straightened from Chandra’s side, sword still held in one hand. She cut the thin blade through the air, making it sing. “Again we have helped you in a fight that was not ours, and  _ again _ you claim it was no help at all.” Turning to Gideon she said, “I will  _ not _ have her with us any longer. Spy for the dragon or not, she’s poison.” 

“You did say you wanted to go a different path.” Gideon spoke to Liliana, standing between her and Nissa with both hands outstretched. Like trying to keep gremlins out of an aether bottle. 

“Oh, sure, I’ll march right up to Belzenlok tomorrow.” Liliana tried to stand, managed to push herself up to her knees, then groaned and collapsed back to the floor. “I had to use the Chain Veil, no thanks to you lot. I’ll be useless, and he’ll be coming.”

Nissa scowled. “A bit of consequence you should have seen coming, Lady Vess. You’re not plane-bound. Why not flee, like you did on Amonkhet?” 

Liliana snarled, her hands curling into fists. “Will you  _ listen _ why I say it was not cowardice, nor a  _ change in loyalties _ , it was just  _ common fucking sense _ ?!” 

Nissa only sneered, the expression curiously at home on her usually calm face. “As it is now. Recover elsewhere, since our help is so useless to you.” 

When it looked like Liliana might resort to spellcasting, since she couldn’t stand up, Chandra stepped forward. “Can you both  _ calm down _ ?” she snapped, looking towards Gideon for support. “We can’t afford to fight right now!” Gids nodded encouragingly at her, so she went on. To Nissa she said, “Bolas  _ is _ still out there, and that means we have to actually recover from the last time he kicked our butts!” 

Turning to Liliana, she jabbed a finger angrily in her direction. “If you want to leave...fine.” It  _ wasn’t _ fine, but Chandra wasn’t going to say that. “Just forget all the times we saved your life! What happened on Amonkhet. On  _ Kaladesh! _ Whatever. Liliana Vess has more important things to do.” She had the small satisfaction of seeing the hurt on Liliana’s face. Maybe it was just the exhaustion, the pain of using the Veil, but for just a moment...Chandra seemed to have struck a nerve. 

“I—” Liliana looked away, noticed the Veil still clutched in one fist, and threw it away. Or at least, she tried to. But when her hand came back, it was still holding the fine chainmail. She put both hands to her forehead, smearing blood across the fine lines of her contract. “Fuck,” she said, very quietly. More loudly, she continued, “Help me kill Belzenlok, and I’ll do whatever you want. Bolas certainly needs to die, I’ll not argue there.” She glanced towards Gideon, who only looked away. “I’d be more useful to you this way. Free of my contracts, I’d be able to harness close to Bolas’ own power.” Chandra had to steel herself not to turn away. It was somehow  _ wrong _ , to see Liliana Vess beg. She hadn’t meant to ask that of the proud woman—hadn’t meant to force her to ask on her knees. 

Unconsciously, they all looked at Gideon. Chandra saw a flash of deep discomfort, almost fear on his face, and then it was wiped away. He stepped forward, crossed his arms, and set his jaw firmly. “You said to me just a few hours ago, Liliana, that I ought not to trust you. Keeping a contract with you seems to be a dangerous business. I’m going to need something from you, if we do this.” 

Liliana looked up at the three of them, desperation and hate warring in her expression. “What?” 

Gideon knelt in front of her, holding out a hand. “Convince me.”

“ _ How? _ ” But she took his hand. 

“Asking that question’s a good start.” Gideon hauled her to her feet, and then when she couldn’t stand, swung the indignant necromancer into his arms—careful of her cut skin. For a moment Liliana’s purple eyes were wide with outrage. She scowled and held herself frozen still, like a cat trying to decide the best way to escape. 

“Are you sure about this, Gideon?” Nissa asked quietly. Chandra looked between the two of them, hope beating wildly in her chest. 

Gids looked seriously at Nissa, taking her opinion in stride. “Do  _ you _ trust me?”

“Yes,” Nissa said at once, without blinking. 

“Then I think we need all the help we can get.” Gideon started for the door, his boots ringing on the ruined marble of the floor. “And besides. I wouldn’t leave her in a place like this.”


	10. Chapter 10

It took them a week to reach the city of Benalia. Nissa spent the time recovering, sending out roots to this new land, and watching Liliana like an apex hawk. They carefully avoided having an argument about Liliana healing her cuts—the necromancer came down from her room with the marks of her battle magically sealed. Nissa knew better than most that power like that wasn’t _created_ , it was _taken_. In Liliana’s case, probably stolen from an unwilling source. 

Nissa could have said something. Maybe she should have, and driven out the rot from the Gatewatch’s ranks. But she had dreamed again the night before, remembering the fight against Ob Nixilis. How desperate she had been, and how easy to pull on spells she’d hoped to forget. She didn’t have to accept Liliana’s sneers and manipulations, but perhaps a truce could be drawn between them. Balanced like a tree and a creeping vine.

And she could be charming when she wanted to be. Even the soldiers who’d come with them, carrying the news of the lich’s defeat, were happy to lay out a seat for her after just a few days of pouts and dramatic sighs. Of soft smiles and strategic flirting. If _Nissa_ could notice the manipulation, surely five full-grown men could.

But her glares slid off Liliana like water over glass. And eventually the white walls of the city rose up in front of them, cut with luminous stained glass that Nissa knew had been enchanted to be harder than steel.

It was no Murasa, but it was pretty. In a straight-ruler kind of way. 

They were met outside the gates by a patrol of battle-ready angels, all armed with spears and glass shields. The (remaining) Gatewatch members, on foot, were all at least a foot shorter than the smallest angel, and the one in front towered almost eight feet tall. Her dark hair billowed in the thin breeze, and her expression of imperious disdain was almost familiar.

“Dark magic and its practitioners are forbidden entry to this city,” she said, her voice ringing like deep bells. “We know you harbor a necromancer amongst you.”

Before anyone else could speak, Liliana scoffed. “I’m not exactly hiding, so _they’re_ not exactly ‘harboring’ me, are you?” She looked around at their escort, all of whom were shuffling uncomfortably. 

Gideon cut in more diplomatically, casting a warning glance towards Liliana. “We are new to your city, Commander, but we mean no harm _or_ disrespect. Liliana was instrumental in defeating the Caligo lich. She will do nothing to harm you or the City.”

Behind him, Liliana crossed her arms and sneered. Nissa poked her with the end of her staff. 

“Commander,” one of the soldiers stepped forward, Rael’s letter of introduction in his armored hand. “This is from Rael, battle angel of Caligo. She can verify what he said.”

The lead angel accepted the letter with one graceful hand, breaking the seal and scanning it’s contents over a tense few minutes. Liliana glared back at Nissa and made a point of dusting off her dress where Nissa had poked it. Chandra snickered. 

Finally, the guardian folded the letter again and looked critically at the Gatewatch. Nissa felt her gaze as a heat, an almost visible light that pried and crept into every part of her. As all-encompassing as daylight, and as relentless. “Rael speaks highly of you.” Her eyes lingered on Liliana, who straightened her shoulders and refused to flinch. “All of you.” Suddenly she swept one wing aside and turned to allow them entry, her fellows standing aside a fraction of a second behind. “The death mage may enter our city. But we will know who is responsible, should any foul spells rise while you are here.” 

“Oh, thanks _ever_ so,” Liliana smiled sweetly and batted her lashes at the battle angel in her stained-glass breastplate. For her part, the angel only blinked down at Liliana, a frown hovering at the edges of her mouth. 

“Yes, _thank_ you,” Gideon said in a very different tone. He took Liliana’s elbow and pulled her past the gates, ignoring her affronted look. 

Nissa ducked her head and followed, immersing herself in the flow of people coming into and out of Benalia City. Gideon paused in the lee of the wall, looking out into the marble buildings and white stone plazas. Liliana shook out of his grip with a huff, running a hand through her hair to make sure not a strand was out of place. 

Chandra was bouncing on the balls of her feet, looking into the streets with a cocky half grin that made Nissa want...

“So where d’you think we’ll find Ajani?” Chandra swung her arms out to encompass the maze stretching out before them. “We should’ve asked that angel if she knew him. Maybe there’s a leonin club somewhere? Or maybe someone like Mrs. Pashiri—” she looked ready to dash after the nearest grandmother-figure, until Gideon put out a hand to stop her. 

“He’s the one who asked to meet on Dominaria. I think if we put the word out that we’re looking for him, sooner or later he’ll be able to come to us.” 

Chandra’s expression was both disappointed and disgusted. “But that means we’re just _sitting_ here. For how long?” 

“As long as it takes.” 

Chandra heaved a sigh and leaned back against the city wall. “I knew you’d say that.” 

“Until then, we’ll need a place to stay.” Gideon’s sympathetic smile was soft as lotus petals when he looked at her. “I’ve got some Ravnican zinos somewhere. Why don’t we find an inn?” Looking at Liliana he added, “A _reasonable_ inn.”

Liliana scoffed. “What makes you think I won’t be reasonable? I’ve stayed in worse than _this_ , I can assure you.” 

“You were hiding out in a castle when Jace found you on Innistrad.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Liliana started back out into the busy street, all the better to cast a lovely glance over her shoulder at them. “It was just a manor house.”


End file.
